Astronomy

When I was young

I used to tell my mother

I wanted to see the stars.

I wanted to feel weightless, borne of air.

I wanted to touch the moon

and hold a handful of light.

​

My mother told me it was quite impossible,

I would have to be older and wiser

to even learn about those things.

"It's not that easy," she had told me

with a smile that meant I was only being silly.

​

Years later, when I met you

I knew my mother was wrong.

Your eyes held every bit of light

from all the brightest stars.

You made me feel weightless,

Like free falling from the highest ledge.

With your face in my hands,

I could feel every emotion

that made life worth living.

When I found you, I knew I had found

what I had always wished for.

​

But my mother was right about one thing.

It was not that easy.

writings on the wall

​

The writings on the wall says "Follow your dreams"

But my dreams lead me to a girl

With coffee eyes and velvet skin.

A tiny mole on the arch of her lips

Like her own constellation.

Her kiss is heaven brought down to earth,

Her smile is a shot of the hardest liquor.

The world seems robbed of air

when I look at her.

She is chaos, she is a catastrophe

She is nothing but perfect to me.

Good god, it should be a crime

To be so disarmingly beautiful.

It is the sweetest punishment

To fall for such beauty

and having to abstain from it

For the sake of propriety.

Guilty promises to cross our paths,

Stolen gazes and unspoken words.

The squeeze of a hand

that feels more intimate than it should.

A tight embrace

disguised as a simple hello,

A kiss disguised as a wave goodbye.

Late night poems, written in tears

Old photographs hidden in drawers.

A ring made of secret promises,

A love rumoured as a scandal.

perfume

I bought your perfume on my way home,

The one you used to wear when we were younger,

The scent I grew to recognise as yours.

I doused myself in it,

even sprinkled some on my bed,

For anyone to find me

I would smell like you.

I have my name in your mouth,

Whispered over and over like a chant.

For anyone to relish me

I would taste like you.

(lonely mornings & an empty bed)

​

There is something about waking up next to someone,

Getting to see them before they piece themselves together

for the rest of the world.

For once, I wish I could wake up next to you.

For once, I wish I could open my eyes to your sleeping face,

Watch the sunlight from the window cascade over your skin.

I would reach out and feel your heart

beating under my fingertips,

You would be there, you would be real.

I would smile to myself

Thinking my dream never ended,

Only transcended into reality

And kiss you awake.

You would mumble something sweet

and pull me back into your chest,

and for once, for once,

Everything would be okay.

But I dance with you in my dreams

and wake up alone every morning 

The empty space next to me screams your absence

Even though you've never really been there.

The First Muse

​

Poetry never made much sense to me.

It seemed vague and pretentious,

But that was before I met you.

​

With sunshine on your lips,

You had smiled at me

And the words poured right out of me,

Like sand spilling out

from the cracks between fingers.

When I fell for you,

All those heartsick poets

And their goddamned heartache

Suddenly seemed more familiar to me

Than my own skin.

When you left,

I stayed up with the moon

to keep me company

and bled out on paper.

​

You made me a poet, love

and now I would write you into history,

You would live forever, in my words

We would be timeless, infinite

Even though we couldn't make it to the end.

You're the one who taught me how to love

Fervently, hungrily, with everything I have.

You made me with your own hands

A lover, a sinner, a supplicant.

Getaway Drug

You crawl into my dreams every night

as if it's your own bed to sleep in

Bittersweet, your vision

My favourite getaway drug, intoxication.

You're sweet, warm, angelic

Relenting, but only on occasion.

Because, in my dreams

You're a freak in the sheets.

Your hand around my throat,

Your legs around my hips,

That look in your eyes,

Imperious, craving, insatiable.

I'm a devoted slave at your mercy.

Your body, my temple

Your taste, my religion.

Surrender all my senses

To be worshipped by you,

You got me down on my knees.

Your mouth does wicked, unspeakable things,

Sends me to a place of forbidden ecstasy.

Your fingers, oh my

Like a pianist, you could find all the right keys

Even with your eyes closed,

All the right places, to set me on fire.

​

On some nights, the roles are switched.

On some nights,

You beg with your hands tied over your head.

My name is the only thing you can whisper.

I trace the map of your skin

Until you come apart

Right before my eyes.

​

It's a punishment

To wake up in a lonely bed,

Still wet and trembling

As if you were real.

It is unfair

How things like cigarettes and cocaine and alcohol

are often accepted, even appreciated.

Maybe the world wouldn't have turned its back on me

If only I had decided to indulge myself

in chalky white powers and velvet smooth drinks.

But I would rather get drunk on you.

[dust under your feet]

You break my heart ten times a day,

I'm a devotee at your mercy.

I crave the way you destroy me

Oh so easily,

and piece me back together

Time and time again.

You're so oblivious to how you make me bleed,

You eyes are so cold they chill my bones.

How can you act so perfectly nonchalant

When I'm drowning right next to you?

​

You told me in your letter

The past still haunts you,

I believe you.

But I wish for once

You would let me see you break.

For once, I wish you would forget the world

and take my hand and show me your scars.

I'm nothing if not starving for your attention.

For once, tell me I'm real

and not just the dust under your feet.

Show me I'm not the only one set on fire.

[are you happy that we happened?]

​

My heart holds countless unsent letters addressed to you,

My mind, overflowing with unanswered questions.

There is one question

that bothers me more than the rest,

that keeps me awake and restless.

​

Do you regret me?

Do you regret letting me have the taste of you,

Letting me take you apart

and revel in every piece of you?

Do you regret letting yourself be ruined by me?

​

I know our affinities are different.

You hardly fall for girls,

Much less a girl like me.

I know you love me,

despite it all.

But do you regret doing so?

Or are you happy that we happened?

I wish we hadn't listened to our hearts.

I wish he hadn't run straight into the red light.

If we hadn't been so drunk in desire,

We wouldn't have crashed and burned.

If we hadn't been so giddy and reckless,

We would have had more time to love.

[your ghost still haunts my town]

I see your ghost everywhere I go,

everywhere we've been.

​

I see you running down the field

like the day you had raced me.

I had slowed down to let you win,

                                  but never admitted it.

​

I see you laughing on the staircase

where we used to sit and talk for hours,

dreaming of eternities together.

​

I see you sprinting along the pavement,

Giggling and shrieking in the rain

Like the day we had sneaked out

to grab some coffee laced with chocolate.

​

Do you remember

When we sat by the pool,

The summer sun setting behind us,

I had told you it was one of my favourite places?

I couldn't tell you then, but

You were my favourite place.

​

Do you remember when I told you

I could spend my whole life being in love

with you, you had cried

Because you had never been so happy?

​

I remember every hour, every moment

With you.

Does my ghost haunt you too?

We used to chase sunsets together,

We picked up fallen stars and wore them around our wrists.

We crossed oceans together

and found shore in each other's arms.

[Untitled]

​

Would you hate me

If you woke up one lovely morning

and heard that I am gone?

Would you hate me

If you found out the heart

which always belonged to you

stopped beating, once and for all?

Would you hate me

If I disappeared,

Leaving nothing behind

But my words?

Would you be so kind to forgive me, darling

If I find my place among the stars?

Would you break when you would realise

You won't hear my voice again?

Would you come to see me one last time

When my skin is cold and painted in red?

​

Would my father let you see me then,

Or would he deny you once more?

Would you tell the world a lie again

Or would you admit you were mine

Just as I was yours?

​

You could visit me there, sometimes

and lay a hand over my grave.

Write me into a story,

Sing me into a verse,

Just don't let me go down in history

as the girl they couldn't save.

They read us all wrong.

We were a beautiful disaster,

You and I.

Maybe we were a catastrophe,

One mess of a masterpiece,

But we were never as revolting

as they made us to be.

(You never knew me at all, did you?)

​

If you ever ask me

How well I knew you,

I would say I knew you well enough

To recognise your footsteps in a stampede

Well enough to recognise your voice

In a choir of thousands,

Well enough to know what you're thinking

Before you even know it yourself.

​

Or maybe I never knew you at all.

​

How well did you know me?

Tell me, what's my favourite season?

Do you know my favourite song?

Did you know I hate flickering lights and tight crows?

Did you know I love the sunrise and water and words?

​

I had memorised the book of you by heart,

But you didn't even know

What language I was written in.

We are not unfamiliar with the high

or the price of it.

We are back here,

Standing by the edge of the cliff.

Take my hand and jump, if you dare

I will follow you regardless.

Stay

​

I wish you weren't in love

With such a disaster like me.

You turn to leave, you tell me it's over

But you let me show up at your doorstep

Every night.

You let me ask you to linger

You let me beg you for one last time,

Though it is never the last time.

And you let me in.

Why can't you slam the door on my face?

Why can't you tell me to leave?

I am incessant, without shame,

I will wait with my heart on my sleeve,

Waste every breathing moment on you

If you don't kill me with your own hands.

There is no way out of this labyrinth

Of love and destruction

If we don't burn it all to to the ground.

​

Tell me to leave,

Because I can't do it on my own.

Tell me to leave,

Because if you keep opening the door,

I will keep coming back.

Tell me to leave, leave, leave.

​

Tell me to stay.

The Last One for The First One

Nearly five years, and I still hear you laugh in my dreams sometimes

But now it doesn't even scratch a surface, let alone mess my head up.

We were just kids caught up in a dream

too high on adrenaline to accept the truth for what it was

I had wrapped a blindfold around my own heart

and jumped in feet first into your poison,

I was your refuge, but you were the storm that wrecked your own town,

Feeding on my soul and bleeding me dry 

just to keep yourself alive.

You went down without a fight and took the coward's way out,

fell into your old ways and called me out for risking too much.

I was too busy chasing a ghost of our past to realise

Since the great divide, we've always been strangers.

I owe you for being the first one to make me fall in love,

No matter how exhausting or rotten it was, 

it was real for me for a while.

I owe you for being the first one to make the words dance around

They never meant much to you, but for me

they have been the only way to purge every emotion out.

​

I used to believe it would be your name I would taste

When they would lay me down to my grave,

But would you believe me if we met 

and I told you I fell in love again?

Harder than I did for you, 

funny thing is he fell in love too

Just not with me.

If I ever tell you, would you sympathise or simply laugh at my misery?

​

I see your face when I close my eyes more often than I'd like,

That same old upward twist of your smile I once had memorised

That same old derisive shake of your head and that same old reminder,

"You could strip down and peel your skin off, but it's never enough for them

​Because you're always the drug, driving them towards the worst of decisions

​The addiction they can't fight, but never the medicine, never the cure.

Because in the end, you're the one who always leaves, 

​Because in the end, they are never enough for You." 

(It's been almost five years, babe, get the fuck outta my head,

Haven't you traumatised me enough?)